I've just come home from a day in town taking photos of the Australia Day activities, focussing on the Harbour but also walking down George Street having a look around. I had to cut things short by a few hours so I could scramble home to fire up the barbeque, which I will be doing in about half an hour from now.

Quite frankly, I do not care for the politics that seems to surface about Australia Day each year. To me, the day is a time to set aside to celebrate and reflect on how lucky we are to be Australians and how lucky we are to live in Australia. Whatever one thinks of the politics and no matter which way one swings on the negative issues, following British settlement on the 26th January, 1788 the first settlers paved the way for a nation to be built from scratch. A dirt track (later to become known as George Street) and two rows of tents became a federation of six states and five cities with a population exceeding one million people. In that time the tyranny of distance, crippling droughts, biblical floods, cyclones and wild animals of all kinds had to be conquered.

And conquer it all we did. That is what Australia Day is for - celebrating the positives.

Have a great day.

When I was a boy,, like most of us , I was told how Australia is the best country in the world and it was constantly named as the lucky country.
Both at home and through out those school years we were all told that it is this best county on earth and the other countries were often thought of as second rate or regarded to as being terrible places , which probably comes from the memories of the turmoil years in Europe ,particularly the war years both 1 and 2.
Both sides of my family came from Scotland long long ago and my dear old Scottish grandmother who always sounded drunk to me as kid would never miss a chance to say how cold it was and how hard it was in Scotland so eat greens ,,,wee Laddie and chew in 10 times before you swallow!

So we tend to grow up thinking, gosh must be hell overseas! Lucky I was born in God's country!!!!
But for me as a teen and in my 20s I felt Australia was lacking something and lifes choices seemed dull and limited. It was the football, meat pie ,kangaroo ,and Holden cars Era and we were all told that this was the best place on earth?????
I was extremely restless in that period of my life so at 21 I sold everything I owned , through in my job and terminated the lease on our house and told my girlfriend it's over.
I then bought a one way ticket to Egypt via Asia ,,so I went on my own and roughed it through Asia and Egypt and a quickly learn that the world is full of amazing places and beautiful people. Some who are so poor they live on a bowl of rice a day ,but yet they want to share it with me!!! A stranger! A new comer !
I learnt that Australia lacks social ways compared to many parts of the world where people are always socialising. Whether rich or poor or in a cafe or a rice paddy field.
In Egypt I became very ill and strangers took me in and cared for me until I was well again.They Refused to take any money I offered them, just gave me their blessings .
After that I went to the Eastern block and hitch hiked through ,Yugoslavia ,Hungary, Czechoslovakia ,Romania then I turned around and hitch hiked up to Germany and then headed towards France and down through the rest of Europe.
I hitched right through Europe then finally I ended up in the Uk..
Eventually I had to return to Australia, but what I had learnt was wonderful, there is no one best country on this Earth, That is propaganda bullshit!!!! Every country has parts in it's history that are ugly, corrupt, or hidden and not spoken of by it's citizens and Australia is no different,, we have parts of our history that are shocking.
But we don't talk about it ,they keep the blanket over our heads just like all the other countries do. There are good and bad points of living in any country.
But for me, I see the biggest down fall here is the lack of social communities and the warm culture that you find in many parts of the world.
Than of course there is the materialistic Greed here and horrific drug use and we have one of the highest suicide rates in the world and the price we pay too live here is we get to work our entire life to pay for it. So perhaps we may of gone off track a bit since those golden hay days they told us about.

Peter

In 2013 I went back to Asia and my wife and I lived in a Nipa hut in the province for awhile. it was it was simply beautiful.
After that we took a lease out on a Apartment and my daughter was born there., when I'm older I intend to live there full time,
Both of us do.

This Topic always reminds me a great song by Pete Seeger
called what did you learn at school today!
Here it is!

https://youtu.be/QzlvF3eHB38

Australia Day was mentioned on the American Broadcasting Corp national news today. Wasn't paying much attention ,something about some demonstrations in Melbourne and other cities. In any event, have a beer for me in celebration.

Wa2ise,

There were demonstrations here yesterday. Fortunately they didn't get out of hand. Some indigenous Australians and their supporters call Australia Day Invasion Day & want Australia Day shifted to another date or banned altogether.

I personally have mixed feelings about this contentious issue. On one hand I see Australia as a country that was settled rather than invaded. One the other hand the indigenous Australians suffered most terribly when the way of life they had known for thousands of years suddenly changed overnight. For some the legacy is still with them.

The original white settlers to this country as you know were transported convicts who really had no choice in the matter. In fact a lot of them had been spared the gallows back in England for what we'd consider today as petty crimes. What is even worse is that these so called criminals were themselves victims of the Industrial Revolution which was in full swing in the late 1700's. The Industrial Revolution caused the displacement of many thousands of people, who like the aborigines had the lives that they had known for many years suddenly disrupted. A lot were forced off the land with mass migrations to the burgeoning cities where the new factories were being built. A lot of people couldn't cope and turned to petty crime to survive.

When Captain James Cook landed on the east coast of Australia in 1770 you had many maritime powers which included the French, Dutch, Spanish & Portuguese scouring the southern oceans looking for the eastern side of Terra Australis. It was only a matter of time before someone was going to find it.

Throughout human history there has always been exploration, invasions/conquering & settlement.

The settlement or invasion of Australia was inevitable.

I was extremely restless in that period of my life so at 21 I sold everything I owned , through in my job and terminated the lease on our house and told my girlfriend it's over.

Sounds like a man on a mission to start a radio collection!

The settlement or invasion of Australia was inevitable.

Indeed it was. The British made it here by milliseconds in the overall scheme of things. The first thing they did after making camp at Sydney Cove was plan for the arrival of the French, the Russians and the Dutch, who were all keen on setting up as many outposts as the British had.

Many remnants of the effort to keep them out still survive. Some are more obvious than others. Fort Denison, constructed on Pinchgut Island in the middle of Port Jackson is probably the most prominent. Bare Island near the north head to Botany Bay and the gun battery on Lady Robinson Beach are others, So it the Dawes Point gun battery and the underground gun battery near the Macquarie Lighthouse.

We certainly didn't have any bronze or iron foundries in Sydney in the 1700s so it was extra-ordinary foresight on the part of the British to bring these large guns with them on each of the major transportation voyages to defend the settlement with.

There were protest marches in most state capitals but when the media boast about the size of these I always say, well 50,000 went to the protests but the other 24 million of us went out and had a good day. I was one of the happy 24 million.

America had a similar story with the preexisting natives "Indians" as they were called. (Seems Christopher Columbus was expecting to find India when he sailed west from Spain, and thought he arrived at India, and called the natives "Indians" and this name stuck). ?

Almost impossible to find old radios or TV's in Asia,because everything gets used and recycled again and again into some form of pesos .
One thing that can be found there though is American cars in storage.
But their never cheap.
It's the best place in the world for grill cloth though!

Pete

Vintage Pete

QUOTE: Both sides of my family came from Scotland long long ago

Hi Vista!

Glasgow!
They are from Glasgow.
It's so cold there people are actually blue and when They come to Australia they have to sit in the sun for a week to become white!

Pete

Australians have the American Revolution to thank as one reason for the First Fleet coming to Botany Bay. The convicts on the fleet before the revolution would have been sent to the American colonies as cheap labour. Another thought was that British patriots in America would come to an Australian colony (they didn't).

As Brad says, another was the wish to beat other powers, especially France, to eastern Australia. The British had intelligence that the La Perouse expedition had been sent, and Captain Phillip's main concern was to beat them to it. He did, just.

Having explored Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour),not entered by Cook, Phillip was desperate to get his fleet to Port Jackson. So much so that it was ordered to leave Botany Bay in the face of easterly winds. There were several minor collisions because of this before the fleet was able to turn north to the entrance to Port Jackson. Taking this risk shows how desperate Phillip was after sailing from England to get established in what they described as the best harbour in the world.

All this is covered in Rob Rundle's book "The First Fleet" which I bought for an Australia Day read - have just read them into Port Jackson. Rundle is a bona-fide sailor and is able to understand the sailing references in various logs, diaries and letters. He has also written up Cook, Matthew Flinders and Bligh - and also Alan Bond, another "sailor" who financed Australia's America's Cup win. He has also written "Fatal Storm: The 54th Sydney Hobart Race" in which there were several fatalities. This is the water through which the First Fleet sailed the last leg to Botany Bay - it had better weather fortunately.

Yes, it was the French that had all the bad weather and misfortune. Have you ever read that story? Unbelievable!

I haven't, but have heard somewhere that the siting of the French at Botany Bay was the last. Their wreckage was found I think in the '60s or '70s near Tonga.

Glasgow!!! Small world, my father is from Larkhall Lanarkshire and mum is a pom from Crowley, London! I love Australia, I was born here, would love to travel but I have a mortgage so probably never will... Keep it on the 26th for the hot weather and beer! A lot of indigenous Australians don't want the date changed either, just the looney left who will never be satisfied!

Any one having trouble posting?

I wasn't here on Australia Day because it was so hot, but I saw some of it on TV.

As for the demonstrations and the stirrers who want to change the date, get a life.